I recently within the last six months have really gotten into drinking anywhere from 1-3 glasses of wine a day. I exercise six days a week, try to watch my food intake but have still gained about 7 lbs. Has anyone else experienced this, and if so how did you cut back. I generally drink either a Chard or Cab. Help me out! My jeans are getting tight and I don't want to give up my vino! Thanks

Wine is not that high in calories (maybe 80 or 90 calories a glass, about 100 for sweet wines) but it all adds up. Plus you get more nutrition from an apple or a potato than from a glass of wine (but not as much fun!)

I've been wondering about the impact of alcohol on weight and fat loss, too. After a few months this spring and summer of puffing up in Portugal, Spain, and Chicago, I decided I needed to slim down a bit. Sad as it sounds, I gave up alcohol from August until just last week, but I did lose 15+ pounds on a low-fat, low-calorie diet.

Most of the information I've consulted reads pretty much like the following excerpt from an online health forum:

"Daily alcohol consumption will slow or stop your [weight-loss] results. The drawbacks are probably going to far outweigh any health benefits. Your liver can't metabolize alcohol and fat at the same time. It will always get rid of the toxic substance (alcohol) first. That means that as long as there's alcohol in your system you won't be burning any body fat. If you have one or two drinks, you might stall your fat loss for a few hours. If you have quite a few drinks, it might be as long as four days before you're metabolizing fat again."

I'm not a dietician or scientist, so I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this statement, but it's similar to other statements I've encountered in various diet and health books. It seems reasonable to think that if you expend many more calories per day than you take in (with consumption of wine included), the above won't apply to you, but I didn't want to take any chances when I did my weight loss. The sources I've consulted say that it's necessary to expend approximate 3500 calories more than you take in, on a weekly basis, in order to lose 1 pound. Perhaps all you need to do is adjust accordingly, to make sure that your daily and weekly calorie balance (with exercise) is sufficient to counter the fat-retaining tendencies of the metabolic process.

Perhaps I don't need to say this, but be sure that most of your exercise is aerobic--treadmill, jogging, elliptical, etc. Anaerobic exercise such as weight-lifting won't burn much in the way of calories. (However, try to do some weight-lifting to prevent your muscle mass from burning away as you diet!)

For now, I'm pretty much back to drinking a glass or two of wine once or twice a week, but I'll probably try (key word!) moving on to the next phase of my diet (belly fat reduction, I hope) in January, and that will involve another dry spell of a few weeks or so. (With exercise, I'll net ~1500-1700 calories per day.)

And then Spain and Italy (and wine) next May and June, and with luck I'll be able to maintain my weight and form....

It's getting cold up there. If I still lived in Wisconsin, I'd bulk up now. Gotta keep warm some way. Milwaukee is brutal in the winter. not just the temp but also the wind coming off of lake Michigan. My family fluctuates 20 lbs every winter. They do tell me, however, that as they get older, it's harder and harder to get the lbs off.

This past year I shot up to the heavieast I've been (225 lbs) and became uncomfortable because of it. I quickly lost 40 lbs by simply changing the amount I ate. No change in wine consumption at all. I did hit a plateau (haven't lost anything since hitting 185)and am stuck there. But I'm not giving up wine to accomplish more weight loss. No way!

KC, on that 20 pounds more than at high school--me too, and it makes me between 5 and 10 pounds more than my ideal for my body type.

From my thirties to my late forties, I gained hardly any weight at all, and I never dieted either. After turning fifty, I noticed the slowdown in metabolism and creeping weight gain--my eating, drinking and exercise habits had changed little, if at all.

These days, I am both unable to lose the extra 20 and unwilling to give up what I love. The good news: my metabolism seems to have stalled at this point. I do try to compensate for the "calories in calories out formula" when I take in too many of the beasts at one sitting.